Alola adopted the motto of “Strong Women, Strong Nation.” The entire country can be strong with the full participation of women in every aspect of national development and in every aspect of social and cultural life.

Halo, respected viewers, and welcome to Good People, Good Works. Timor-Leste, a country located on the eastern end of Timor Island in Southeast Asia, is known as the “world’s youngest nation” as it became independent in 2002.

Today, we’ll go to Dili, the capital, to visit the Alola Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes the rights of women and children and nurtures women as leaders. The Foundation was established in 2001 by the nation’s first First Lady Ms. Kristy Sword Gusmão, who is the wife of His Excellency Xanana Gusmão, Prime Minister of Timor-Leste.

She currently serves as the Foundation’s chairwoman. She is also the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Goodwill Ambassador for Education and is the chair of the UNESCO National Commission for Timor-Leste.

Women and children are amongst the most vulnerable sections of society both here in Timor-Leste and in many countries, and they often lack the political clout to actually have a voice, and to be able to articulate their special needs. And this is the problem not only here in Timor, but all around the world. So we need to pay special attention, and ensure that women and children do have a voice, do have a say in issues affecting their lives, including policy, government legislation; these are all really important issues for the future of a country.

The 132-member strong Foundation staff works hard to provide a range of services to the women and children of Timor-Leste, offering programs through the following four departments:
• Maternal and Child Health
• Education
• Economic Development
• Advocacy

The chief executive officer of the Foundation is Ms. Teresa Verdial De Araujo.

Our principle is equality, fairness, participation and respect. So everywhere if you mention “Strong Women, Strong Nation,” – (people say) “Oh that’s Alola.” And in all of our programs we try to support the government. So the four main programs here actually are related to our government’s priorities. We are very lucky to have a program that’s connected to our government’s priorities and the MDGs, Millennium Development Goals.

Many of the issues faced by women in this country both in the maternal and child-health spheres, in the advocacy’s sphere too, and in the areas of economic empowerment, they are experiences that many women in the region and indeed around the world share.

And I think we've come up with a number of innovative projects and programs to address some of these issues, all of them with a very clear principle and foundation in building the capacity and the education levels of people, mainly women and children at the grassroots level.

Most of the Foundation’s work is community-based with extensive networks of groups and support workers. The programs have achieved great results, and due to the heightened awareness of women’s rights, more and more women are joining the organization.

So we create programs in our district. Sometimes once a year, once or twice we always call Alola officials to attend a meeting in Dili so they can see each other from different districts. Because we also have very different ideas. If they can meet, it will be very good, eespecially for women. They return home happily, because they have shared stories with each other.

Over time, we’ve broadened our mandate, our mission if you like, to include services and public education campaigns for women on maternal and child-health issues, on exclusive breast feeding and setting up grassroots structures to support the knowledge and education of women and young girls about the importance of certain practices such as exclusive breast feeding.

Timor-Leste’s maternal and infant-mortality rates have been among the highest in Southeast Asia. Thus the Alola Foundation started the Maternal and Child Health program in 2003 to increase the number of safe births and improve the health of babies by building awareness of the best breastfeeding practices.

Halo, my name is Angelina Fernandez. I work as a nurse, providing services for expecting mothers and infants. This program especially promotes, breast feeding skills to take care of the baby and to deliver the baby safely.

We pay attention to improving nutrition for toddlers with parents, especially from breast milk because here there are many children who lack adequate nutrition. Also the rate of infant mortality is increasing. Therefore, it is very important for us to introduce to them the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the infants instead of introducing supplemental foods too early.

According to statistics, 90% of women in Timor-Leste give birth at home. Alola has thus established what are called “Mother Support Groups” in nine of the country’s districts. Currently 32 Groups with more than 200 volunteer members are providing free consultations to pregnant women regarding maternal health and advice on infant care to new mothers.

To make this program successful, Alola Foundation makes efforts to collaborate with the Ministry of Health and with other parties competent in the training of breast feeding throughout the nine districts and to train health workers to support groups of mothers, which in turn can inform society that breastfeeding is important, and inform the community with other programs on how to deliver a baby safely.

They can contact health workers to get help with delivering the baby at home. And this work includes finding solutions for families that have difficulties accessing transportation, and helping in emergency cases, such as when complications arise when the time comes to give birth so that they can be transported to the hospital.

Tais, or the traditional handmade textiles of Timor-Leste, are an important part of the nation’s cultural heritage. To encourage economic development and help women increase their family income, Alola Esperansa Lta, a subsidiary of the Foundation, operates the Alola Textile Center and Taibessi Sewing Center, which produce Timorese crafts and textiles.

The Textile Center partners with local women weavers who earn money when their items are sold at the Foundation’s Alola Shop. The Foundation also employs 30 women at the Sewing Center with their handiwork also showcased at the Shop.

Economic development, this program looks at how to improve women’s economic status, and also pays attention to culture, especially tais, to increase family income. We provide training to them about the quality and color and also how they should set the prices for tais (they have made).

My name is Helen Gomes. I am the manager of the Alola Esperansa Shop. I want to introduce to you to our shop a little bit; we have different kinds of products that are made from tais, as you can see on TV. The available products are handbags and wallets. And we have handbags for women and also for men. And there are many models for the wallets. Those products are made from tais.

We work together with the Alola Foundation program, for economic development in the district to find groups who can make tais and they deliver it here. We buy the tais then we send them to our production center in Taibesi. In order to attract buyers we make different kinds of products which I mentioned earlier from the available tais, because besides the tais, people sometimes also want to buy wallets, handbags and clothes made from tais.

After several years of promotion, Alola products have received the international community’s attention, and some items have been stocked at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Australia. Oxfam Shops, which are run by the international development charity Oxfam, feature products produced by disadvantaged people around the world.

In 2009, the Oxfam Shops in Australia decided to carry Alola’s handicrafts. The Education and the Advocacy departments also play important roles in helping the Foundation fulfill its mission. There are two programs offered by the Education department.

One is the Friendship School Program, where a small number of Dili-area schools are linked to Australian schools to promote ties between the wonderful children of these two neighboring nations. In the School Visit Program, members of the Education department visit Dili-based schools to aid teachers with curriculum development and introduce students to new ideas.

Activities that are part of the program include painting, creating collages, storytelling and story reading, art activities to decorate classrooms, and outdoor games. One of the key components of the Advocacy program is the Women’s Resource Center which was established in 2003. Among the varied offerings of the Center are computer literacy and life skill courses.

I’m very, very proud of the work that the staff of the Alola Foundation are doing both in our Education program, in our Advocacy program, and I think it's very important as a staff that we have a very strong sense of team spirit of working together towards the same goal of empowering the women and children of this country to play a full and active role in the life of the nation, and I just encourage all of the staff of Alola and everyone involved to be mindful always of our constituency, and keep always their interest and their needs in mind.

We’d like to sincerely thank former First Lady Kristy Sword Gusmão, Teresa Verdial De Araujo, and the other members of the Alola Foundation for continually seeking to advance the welfare of women and children in Timor-Leste.

For more details on the Alola Foundation, please visit www.AlolaFoundation.org

Bright viewers, thank you for presence on today’s program. Please join us again on Good People, Good Works next Sunday for the conclusion of our series profiling the Alola Foundation. Coming up next is The World Around Us, after Noteworthy News. May all the world’s women and children wear happy, beautiful smiles every day.